Pablo Picasso’s 1932 masterpiece Femme a la Montre is set to go on the block at Sotheby’s in London with estimates of what it will fetch starting at $A188 million at auction.

The work was owned by art patron and collector Emily Fisher Landau and it depicts Picasso’s “golden muse” Marie-Therese Walter, a woman who formed the subject of many of Picasso’s portraits and who was known to have had an affair with the painter.

The oil on canvas painting forms part of the exhibition The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined, which will take place at Sotheby’s from Saturday to Wednesday.

Ms Fisher Landau bought the Picasso painting in 1968 at the start of her collecting journey.

The travelling exhibition will also open in Paris, Taipei and Los Angeles and has already been to Dubai and Hong Kong.

Artists who feature in the Landau collection include American painter and sculptor Jasper Johns, Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, American painter and printmaker Robert Rauschenberg, abstract painter Mark Rothko as well as Edward Ruscha and Andy Warhol, both associated with the pop art movement.

The travelling exhibition displays highlights from the collection including John’s 1986 oil on canvas art work Flags and Rauschenberg’s 1962 silkscreen painting Sundog which is estimated to sell at auction for for up to $A19 million.

The collection, estimated to bring in well over $A626 million will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s New York in two dedicated auctions on November 8 and 9.

-AAP